odi et amo
by Syndic-Machiavelli
Summary: I hate and I love. Why do I do this, you ask? I do not know, but I feel it happening and I am tortured. Viktor/Selene challenge, non-Evolution compliant. Rewrite of the previous fic: plot expanded, characters rewritten, reviews very much appreciated.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** This is my return to Underworld fanfic after a two (nearly three) year hiatus. When I write, the planning and envisioning of scenes so many times before they actually get to the paper (or screen) usually puts lots of short-cuts and compression into my writing, because I know what is going on. Of course the reader doesn't, so all the assumptions and omissions I make become totally non-sensical. Returning to the story now makes me realise just how riddled with holes the story is, so I have decided to re-write it. It should now a) be more more lucid and b) move more slowly. Since I live in Australia, I will use British English for spelling and grammar (unless I am writing Michael, in which case American syntax may intrude.)

**I. Odi et amo**

_Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?_

_nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. –Catullus 85_

_I hate and I love. Why do I do this, you ask? I do not know, but I feel it happening and I am tortured._

In death, he looked almost peaceful. Even while he had slept he had never looked at rest. It was always as if the daylight hours had blasted away the fragile, deceptive construction of his waking faces like a sandstorm, laying bare his true expression. Sleep had swept away the iron control he normally had, let me see some inner facet of him that no-one else did, some mystery that had sculpted the planes and angles into a too-familiar show of loneliness and grief. I wonder if he had known how vulnerable he had looked. But I didn't want him to look at peace, I wanted that familiar expression to be etched forever on his features. I wanted him to be writhing in the flames of Tartarus, screaming the way my nieces had, pleading for mercy the way my family had not.

"Selene? Selene, listen to me." Michael's voice was insistent. "Selene, we have to leave. Now."

"Michael, do you think I'm fucking stupid? Yes, we have to leave. I do actually realise that if the vampires catch us we will be tortured until we don't have the strength to scream for mercy."

He was quiet for a moment. The metronome drip-drip-drip from the pipes in the sewer was not. Further away I could hear snatches of the wounded and the dying. The grief of the newly orphaned or widowed and the anger, guilt and despair of their surviving comrades would come hours later. It gave Michael and I time. It gave me a choice. What I had said was not entirely true: no-one to my knowledge actually knew what had occurred here. I could return to the mansion, claim that Lucien or Kraven had killed Viktor, help those Death Dealers who had survived and mourn those who had not. I would be safe. I could, to some extent, simultaneously protect Michael and slow the war from the inside. Despite my appearance, I was no mere infantryman. Whether I wanted it or not, I was the last of Viktor's bloodline and heiress to a family that had rules the greater game for centuries. _Speak not of the game._ The command rang in my blood and my heart. The first law of the aristocracy: Do not speak of the greater game to those who are not its players. But I had a choice now...

"You've seen it, haven't you Selene? Have you...have you done it?"

Michael rushed out the words as if that would make the question more palatable. It was not one I had any desire to answer. The look on my face was enough. _What had I done?_ I no longer had a choice: soon I would have no freedom, no minutes free from risk and no sanctuary to which I might return. For the second time in my long existence my emotions, my fallible, fragile, useless conscience had forced me to wlk the blade's edge. The first time... No, I would not think of that either.

"There is nothing here for me now."

I tore my gaze from _his_ face, leading the way.


	2. Chapter 2

**II. Arma virumque cano**

_arma virumque cano Troiae qui primus ab ortis_

_Italiam fato profugis Laviniaque venit -Vergil _Aeneid I

Arms and the man I sing, who first from the shores of Troy

was driven to Italy by fate and came to Lavinia.

The smoke, dim lighting, but above all the loud music in the bar was pissing me off. I suddenly appreciated the peace and quiet of my - _former - _Ordoghaz quarters. As usual, I fell into my old habit of not realising the finer things in my existence until they were shot out from under my feet, literally or otherwise. Reminiscing was futile: I had to be here. But maybe being here was futile as well.

Rigel and Nathaniel had blacklisted Tyrrell two months ago as an arms dealer for the Lycans, but he had always managed to stay just that one step ahead. The pair had been called before Mason more than a few times for his escapades. And now I was going to grovel to him for help? I grinned slightly at the memory of Rigel and I doing our best Kraven impressions. That was _not _the sort of grovelling I was hoping to achieve.

"I'll have whatever the lady's having, as long as it isn't blood and vodka. What do you want _ma cherie_?"

A crisp English accent interrupted my musings, while I tried to restrain from glaring. I was not _his dear_, in French or any other language. The voice's owner perched himself on the bar stool in closest proximity to me, inspecting his new client as closely as I was my new patron. 5'10", dark brown hair cut short, tanned face with no visible scars, clothing indicating a moderate level of wealth and a lack of desire to flaunt it, unusual eyes blocked by a pair of sunglasses. Cliched but discreet, appearence matching briefing files, well aware of what might be visible to our kind and what would be missed by humans. The last vestiges of the unpleasant scent of lycan still clung to his skin.

"Two screwdrivers, very strong," I ordered, "charged to the account of Sir James Tyrrell."

I watched with some amusement while the bartender couldn't get out of hearing range fast enough. _Well. Sir James has a reputation. _The knight in question smiled lasciviously at me.

"Mason sends an attractive young Dealer like you out to fetch me, yet he can't even convince Kraven to foot the bill? Very impolite of him."

"You'll have no trouble in avoiding his example, I hope," I fired in return.

"Which is fortunate, considering that were I to become impolite you might have to spank me."

An unsual parry to say the least.

"Not into necrophilia, Sir James?"

He laughed.

"At least your kind are honest about what you are. The Lycans usually spend half their time pushing their moral crusade against the living dead at me. Monsters should know what they are - and accept it - instead of trying to hide behind civilisation."

"Have I been living in the wrong Coven? Last time I looked we were doing a decent impersonation of a number of spoiled, wealthy, arrogant human aristocrats."

"An impersonation?"

Tyrrell's voice was light with amusement, but I had the horrible suspicion that I was losing the initiative. He knew something - or thought he knew something - that he thought I thought I didn't want him to know. Now I remembered why I disliked this part of fieldwork. In lieu of a reply I picked up one of the glasses newly deposited on the bar. The lead crystal was cool and familiar against my fingers, condenstation already forming on the marble counter.

Tyrrell raised his own glass in salute.

"To the war and its messenger, most exquisite of warriors?"

"To the war...and the Lady Amelia," I replied.

Tyrrell nearly ruined the toast by splutterring his drink over the counter.

"Ah, flattery is an ineffective weapon against you...my Lady!"

"By definition, if vampire aristocracy is one's yardstick. Not the same in the Plantagenet court?"

"A student of human history as well as a Death Dealer? Come to think of it, you almost certainly lived through the wars of the roses. What is history for a mere mortal is but a saunter down memory lane for an immortal."

"I did, in fact. Fortunately I was posted in France for the majority of that period. I had the honour of seeing lucked-out royalty exiled from England at least once a decade. Every competitor for the crown was holed up on the coast sometime in the fifteenth century and half of the sixteenth."

"And the vampires had their fangs into all of them?"

"Oh, you migh very well think that. I'm just a Death Dealer, not a council member-" I said innocently.

"So you couldn't possibly comment?" Tyrrell parried.

Half an hour of verbal fencing, lasciviousness and political posturing later, I had resigned myself to never reaching a deal and settled for humorous extrapolation instead: the expression on his face if Mason had been here as per regulations, whether or not I could let his tyres down before he stared inviting me to see his etchings, or what might happen when Tyrrell mistook his contacts. Finally, after restraining myself countless times from pouring the last of my screwdriver over his immaculate shirt, we had finally swapped small talk for munitions.

"You give me a pair of Walther P99s, six hollowpoint mags and a few rounds of the UV bullets you've been supplying to the nice Lycans, and I'll take you off the blacklist."

A flicker of his eyes was the only reaction the gun runner allowed himself before replying.

"Why the sudden exchange?"

He wasn't bad at hiding his surprise, for a human.

We paused to let the bartender scurry away after depositing a new pair of glasses, the perfect interlude for me to produce the right tone, just enough sinister authority to lure him into my bluff.

"We believe that on occasion it is more useful to have an ally than an enemy. Even with scum like you."

He took a casual sip of alcohol, another smile. _Why does his smile remind me of someone else? Where have I seen this impenetrable confidence before? _What in the Elders' names was I doing talking myself into defeat, as if this was another time when I had been hauled out before the senior Death Dealer for being rash, or a power-fuelled aristocrat for kicking Kraven in the kneecaps in public?

"How do I know you have the authority to pull me off the blacklist? After all, the Lycans pay most of my bills."

Now it was my turn to smile.

"If we sucessfully reverse engineer the new Lycan weapons, your name will be removed from the blacklist. I have been…on good terms…with the person in charge of arms analysis for over two centuries."

It wasn't quite a lie and yet… _Stop feeling guilty. You killed him for your family, for the centuries you mindlessly wasted fulfilling his mission. _I was _not _going to lose it.

"I wouldn't mind being on good terms with you myself. Anything else you need _cherie_?"

God he reminded me of Kraven. I'd pay to lock the two of them in a room together.

"I'll let you know. Aside from the usual client privacy, of course. If Raze hears that you are dealing with the vampires, I expect he'll be rather displeased."

"_Always make an understatement when threatening reasonably sensible people, my child. If, on the other hand, you wish to threaten Kraven, punching him in the face or pouring his drink over his head is far more effective with people of less than average intelligence." _Somehow I managed to keep my face as dispassionate as my voice. Curse my treacherous brain for reminding me of Viktor's laugh.

"If, on the other hand, I receive complaints from some aristocrat about dealing on both sides of the fence, _I _will become displeased. Do not fail me."

I was utterly astounded at the look of what on anyone else's face I would think of as fear. Surely not. Less than a second of indecision passed before he thrust his right hand at me along with his answer.

"Agreed. Three weeks until the handover. My Lady."

He made a slight bow over his hand and walked out.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the glare from a rare downlight on the mirror-polished marble bar. Myself, my face, even my brown eyes. But it was _his_ cold glare, Viktor's imperious expression. _But _I _am nothing like Viktor. Fuck, _I_ have a soul or I wouldn't be feeling like this now. Viktor was never prey to fear._

"We're set," I said to Michael as soon as the effects of his kiss wore off.

I wasn't used to being stuck in a safehouse with someone else practically 24 hours a day. I had roomed with other Death Dealers before, but our fights over candles and desk space, practical jokes, collective bitching about the slave-driving instructors and panicking whenever Viktor decided to demand our assessments in classical Greek to "keep life interesting" were nowhere near as nerve racking as spending all my time with a single nascent hybrid. _Not _because he was attractive – _Admit it Selene, you actually enjoy the times he wanders around without a shirt on _– but because he aroused feelings I had never felt before in my immortal life. Or had I? Maybe I just didn't want to accept that every smile reminded me of the gleam in Kahn's eyes whenever he let off explosives in areas he wasn't allowed to enter, or that his bewildered looks recalled my nieces' incomprehensive faces at learning something new.

"I did manage to contact one of the pro-Lycan arms dealers and the rendezvous sounds promising. Tyrrell has agreed to supply another pair of automatics and various types of ammunition, so I can begin training you in marksmanship in a month or so. In the meantime, I can still pin you effortlessly with _yokoshio katame_ and you must practice."

Something intangible in Michael's reaction made me pause. Was there more than his usual weariness in his posture? After all, he had been hurled from his normal, easy existence mere days ago. I had found it difficult to adjust to my new life, yet I had had other people to support me and a mountain of new skills to learn that had allowed me to push away any bitter reminiscence.

"What was the rendezvous like? I keep imagining a cloak-and-dagger, _film noir_ kind of meeting. You know, a shady guy in a back street somewhere, suitcases of banknotes, henchmen in trench coats."

Now it was my turn to smile.

"Perhaps that is how the Lycans do business. _I_, on the other hand, sat in a luxurious bar in one of Budapest's elegant hotels, exchanging polite conversation with a handsome, well-dressed gentleman. Not a gentleman, to use the correct meaning as I learnt the word, but a nobleman. Well, a knight."

I grinned openly. Michael and I had become used to winding each other up. So far his attempts had proved more successful than mine.

"Does this handsome knight have a death wish?" he asked, trying to keep a straight face.

"Sir James arranges the import and export of illegal weapons for most of Lycan Europe. If narrowly escaping death multiple times a year isn't his top priority, it's certainly on his list of things to do."

I liked hearing Michael laugh. I had heard laughter too few times in my existence, far too often tainted with irony or bitterness. There had been more than a few hours of drunken revelry when I was a cadet, an officer-in-training or celebrating as a fully-fledged Dealer, yet as the years drained away my rising position had prevented me from celebrating so openly. Or perhaps I had simply frightened the plebeians into "forgetting" to extend an invitation to me.

"Forgive me for asking the obvious, but how do you know this knight in shining armor is trustworthy? I mean handing us over to the vampires would virtually give him a get-out-of-coven-free card, right? Or he could just rat on us to the Lycans: they can't be happy about their secret weapon running off with a vampire."

"Get-out-of-coven-free card?"

My eyebrows raised as I attempted to stall answering.

"From a kind of board game. People roll dice and get sent to jail and so on...never mind, I suppose that isn't your kind of entertainment. Anyway, why haven't we been attacked yet? Or offered asylum or whatever else might be in store?"

"No-one knows what is going on. I assume the Lycans are busy fighting over who their next leader will be. I thought that might be Raze - the tall black one - but for all I know they are too busy tearing each other to pieces to worry about my kind. As for the Coven, no Elder has been assassinated in our history, nor is the Council still alive to pick up the pieces, which is - was - their function in an emergency on this scale. Marcus will be awoken to restore order sooner rather than later, so I have to take advantage of the Coven's resources now, before he catches on. If he does: I don't even know if he can be properly regenerated without an Elder."

The sigh escaped my lips before I could stop it. There was so much I didn't know. So much I thought I would never have to know, not with Viktor in one term and Amelia in another. Marcus...I preferred not to consider how Marcus and I had co-existed.

"I need information. For that I need to leave and I cannot have you with me if I meet vampires. I need to know that I can leave you behind and that you will be safe."

"Don't patronise me Selene. I am a mature adult, I have more strength and speed than anything else in existence and I know how to look after myself!"

Michael sucked in a breath as if the air crystallized in his throat.

"Look, I'm sorry. It just feels like I'm a child getting the "I can't leave you at home alone" lecture. This is a whole new life for me, but that doesn't mean that I can't use what I know from my old one. Right now I need your help and your knowledge, I even need you around to kill things, something I never thought I could even contemplate. But I need to know myself as well. I have to drink what I used to put in people's intravenous lines, I have to kill people, if things come to that, when I swore an oath to save them. I just need space to work out how everything fits together."

I blinked. That was the most Michael had spoken to me since we had met. Every word he said was right. I just hoped that his new life would give him that time. Perhaps I was being overly harsh. After all, revenge had been an unparalleled motivator and Michael Corvin would never be a nominee for Budapest's most aggressive resident.

"So, would you prefer more judo practice, or is it a history lesson this evening?" I asked dryly.

I kept my tone light. It was the closest I could manage to an apology.


End file.
